The Wild Hunt
by parasomniac
Summary: A young Professor Crane is refining his toxin, and his new student seems like the perfect test subject. But when he follows her home one night she turns out to be something else entirely and drags him deep into a world of organized crime, addiction, and worst of all, thoroughly unwelcome emotions.
1. Katrina

_Jonathan Crane made good choices. _

_He chose addicts. If they died, the authorities would blame an overdose. If they lived, they themselves would write it off as a bad trip._

_He chose women. Violence against them was common, especially here. Their deaths were seen as regrettable, but less likely to be blamed on organized crime._

_He chose those new to the city. They didn't have as many friends, got lost more easily. Slipped through the cracks._

_He chose blondes. After all, he had a type._

Katrina Vandemeer was a late addition to his evening class, but she was instantly the centre of attention. She sidled in half an hour before break in high-waisted denim shorts that barely brushed the tops of her thighs and sat herself front row centre, stretching those long golden legs out towards Crane like an invitation. Every eye in the room (including his own) was on her as she stretched, pulling the fabric of her blouse taut over round, full breasts, causing not a few breaths to hitch as her hair, the same honey blonde as those perfect legs, shimmered with the movement. Of course she looked directly at him, a challenge in those big root-beer-coloured eyes. She raised a pen to those full lips and parted them slightly to bite the end, and as she did so, Crane had the singular experience of the cold plummet of fear down his spine at the same time as his cock stiffened against his pants.

_It's her._

For the barest second he just stood there, his mouth open in the middle of the lecture, indulging his thoughts. A windblown night twenty years ago. Screaming, twisted metal, and then silence. Finality.

It wasn't her.

_But it might as well be._

He recaptured his train of speaking behind the lectern, carefully not looking at her, keeping quite still, waiting for his arousal to subside as his panic had. Still, every once in a while she would shift her hips in her seat and during break he had to go to the bathroom and splash cold water on his face for a good two minutes.

At the end of class he had his students hand in a short paper on their opinions of Arkham's controversial expansion program. Hers was, frankly, everything he'd expected it to be- short, clear, and completely devoid of anything that might be considered groundbreaking or even insightful. Passable, and nothing more.

It was dangerous to go after his students, and Crane was hardly foolish enough to attempt it on a regular basis. However, once in a while a pupil would come along who, for one reason or another, was just too good to resist. Katrina Vandemeer was unquestionably one of those students.

He thought of the challenge in her eyes. The roll of her hips as she left the classroom. He thought of her pretty, puffy lips. Thought of them spread wide in a scream.

Oh, would she _scream_.

He didn't allow himself to look at her, not _really,_ for a month and a half.

The first night he had worked out her class schedule, and two weeks after that he found an appropriate opportunity to follow her after class all the way back to her tiny apartment just off-campus. He made no move, though- he was waiting for the perfect moment.

That moment came the week of midterms. Every week she sat at the front of the class, and that day he'd overheard her speaking to another student about how much studying she had to do after her final class on Friday. Crane had to suppress a smile.

In front of them stretched two weeks of exams, two weeks without classes. No one would think twice about her absence, not for at least twelve days. It almost hurt, this anticipation. Come Friday, she would be his.

On that day, he finished grading the preliminary papers early and gave himself leave to watch her as he hadn't before. After her evening class (Sociology), she talked to a few friends, went for coffee. Jogged to the gym and did a half hour on the elliptical. Headed home around ten.

He followed her.

To keep himself calm until the time came to strike, he watched her from a distance and thought about her.

She was friendly. Outgoing. Smart enough. Sweet.

_Just like Sherry_.

He couldn't decide whether he wanted to abandon that thought or hang onto it while he had her.

Not to worry. There would be time.

Finally, the moment came. Having strolled home in a leisurely fashion, she was standing at her door in a narrow alleyway, fumbling for her keys. He slipped up behind her silent as a shadow and grabbed her braid, intending to yank her head back and dose her liberally with fear toxin.

When he pulled, her hair came off in his hand.

Before the shock registered, she'd spun around, driving a fist into his gut with surprising force, bringing him to the ground at the same time as knocking the wind out of him. She fell to her knees on the pavement next to him, fumbling now for something he was sure weren't her keys. Kneeing her in the back so that she fell on top of him, he used her proximity to release some of the toxin right into her face, withdrawing withdrew a small knife from his sleeve. He intended to drive it into her ribs. Not to hurt her, not really. Just to incapacitate.

She feinted backwards as he stabbed, and the knife sunk into one of her perfect breasts. Instead of screaming in pain as he'd expected, she snorted as a spray of clear, viscous fluid from the cut coated them both.

Despite his total confusion he managed to get the advantage, flipping her over and wrapping his long hands around her neck. As he did, he released several doses of his toxin into her face. They didn't seem to be affecting her.

The choking did.

There was something strange about her almost-bared teeth that made them seem too big, pushing her lips forward. Her face was less sweet than he remembered. Her big eyes looked almost alien as he pressed down, her skin growing red and then pale in quick succession. Rather than struggle against him, she lay quite still, carefully placing her hand under one of his pinky fingers and yanking up before he even knew what she was doing. He heard a crack, felt a bolt of agony shoot up into his shoulder, and fell back, snarling in pain.

Again she took the advantage, rolling him over with her knees, landing straddling his shoulders, sinking a knee into each of his arms so that he couldn't move. This time she searched quickly, withdrawing a long syringe, tapping it, and sinking it into his neck before he could react. There was a burning rush and a sharp taste in the back of his throat as the sedative took hold, and he blinked heavily, struggling to stay awake. As he lost consciousness, he looked up at the strange woman leaning over him with a mixture of hatred and awe. Her real hair, white-blonde, hung ragged over a face flushed and contorted with their struggle, her thin shoulders heaving as fluid leaked from the wound on her chest. In his confusion, he thought she might be a ghost. A manifestation of vengeance. Payment for his sins.

She reached up to her face and pulled a small, metal bud out of each nostril and opened her mouth to withdraw a strange, vented apparatus that had fitted over her teeth.

"Sorry, professor," the girl who was decidedly not Katrina Vandemeer said in a voice huskier, slightly deeper than the one he had come to know, her new face haloed in the dim light, "bad choice."

He blacked out.

**Haha I said the word cock. No but really. I wouldn't peg Crane as the particularly horny type but Sherry Squires, man… brings back memories. Which may or may not have been the motive.  
I've been a Crane fan for forever and a day but haven't really been ballsy enough to upload anything (or even write anything, ever, so this is like double-popping my fanfic cherry) until this recent rash of TDKR Crane newbies. I've always enjoyed fanfic but for now I'm still pretty embarrassed about writing it (even though I know I shouldn't be).  
This one is gonna be a slow-boiler in terms of romance, so don't hold your breath or anything, but I can promise it gets pretty crazy in terms of… crazy pretty fast.**

**Updates Mondays and Thursdays.**

**More or less.**

**xo,**

**Yeti**


	2. Dessa

"Ow. Shit." Odessa Korschev, Dessa to her very few friends, was involuntarily flinching away from her hand as she attempted to fish the contact lenses from her eyes. She voiced a silent prayer that her vision would never fail, and that she'd never have to change her eye colour again. Six weeks of wearing the stupid things and it hadn't gotten any easier. It would be a relief to peel off the heavy, padded bra she'd been wearing, to wash the spray tan off her pale skin. Hell, it had even been a relief when he ripped off the wig. This, though, was the best part of becoming herself again.

In the shower-room she scrubbed herself pink under the hot water, determined to obliterate every streak of tan. She lathered shampoo over her fine hair until she couldn't feel it anymore under the bubbles, massaged the fresh bruises on her knees where she'd fallen to the pavement. Once out, she abandoned a bra (she still had sore spots on her shoulders and ribs where the other one had rested) in favour of a loose black v-neck and let her baggy jeans ride low on her hips.

Something dark and dull-edged flitted at the edge of her vision, but she ignored it. She wasn't going to give any time to it. Not now.

For the first time in almost two months she didn't bother with a weapon.

In the main area of the abandoned Gotham SuperGym (it seems the only residents of the great city who wanted exercise were blowing things up or sporting a cape and batsuit) sat her subject. He was starting to stir, but she had him set up to an IV filled with the sedative that was capable of rapid release, just in case. She'd had him plastic-cuffed to a plush, dark red chair in the middle of the room, stripped of weapons. Stripped, in fact, to bare chest and trousers. She couldn't deny enjoying seeing him like that somewhat- he was very handsome, if scrawny, but it was the sudden turning of the tables that made her smile. Padding over to him in her bare feet, she brushed some hair out of his face before perching on the back of the chair across from him. From there, suppressing any nerves or hesitations she might have had, she watched him wake up.

His eyes opened in fits and starts, fluttering, and he groaned low in his throat. It sounded pained. She worried for a few minutes that she'd dosed him too strongly but eventually his eyes started to open in earnest, his vision slowly focusing in on the room. On her.

Unconsciously, Dessa hummed the opening bars of 'Good Morning Starshine'.

He sneezed, a strangely tiny sound, and his eyes snapped open.

"Ketamine." He spat out the word in a jumbled slur, but Dessa got the jist and gave him the benefit of the doubt. "_Cat_ tranqulizer."

She shrugged, digging a cigarette out of her pocket. "You were trying to strangle me. Want one?"

He turned his head in unmasked disgust. "I don't pollute my lungs."

"That's debatable."

"You know. How?" His glare was poison, his words a command.

"That's not important. You're here-"

"It is."

"It's not brave to argue with me. It's pigheaded."

"Why have you done this?"

"Which part?" The grin that played at her lips was mean, and he sensed it, pushing forward in his chair.

"Any of this!" He lunged in frustration, drawing back when the pain hit. His eyes widened as he saw his finger, splinted and wrapped in gauze.

"You broke my finger."

"I fixed it up."

"You _broke _my_ finger_."

"Yes!" She slammed her hand down on his knee, leaning in close. "Yes, I broke your finger. While you were trying to choke me to death in the middle of a fistfight that started when you tried to ambush me in a dark alley after stalking me for two months. Bingo, professor! _I broke your fucking finger._"

Through this tirade he hadn't flinched or even broken eye contact with her, and his cold blue eyes were beginning to seriously unsettle her. Not that she would let _him _see that.

"Why did you kidnap me?" He said, voice quiet. Any emotion that had surfaced he had buried safely back beneath his cool, professional exterior. Even tied to a chair, shirtless, he exuded calm.

"We need you to develop a cure to your toxin."

A smile crept over his lips like a centipede.

"We."

She nodded, "We."

"There is a cure. An antidote. If you'd done your research-"

"The antidote is only effective within a few hours at most. I'm talking about reversal of long term damage."

" No such thing. There's a cocktail of benzodiazepines and anticonvulsants and-"

"We're not looking for symptom relief. We're looking for a full recovery."

"Not possible."

"You're lying." She kept her voice as even as possible, but he still raised his eyebrows at the accusation.

"And what about the chase? The six-week charade? What about that, _Katrina_?"

"I had to be sure that you were still active. You've been quiet, lately."

"What happened to 'we'? Katrina, are you here _all alone_?"

He looked so smug she wanted to backhand him hard across the face and see if his expression changed then. Somehow she restrained herself.

"I'm working on behalf of an interested party, but the pursuit of you was under my own initiative, yes."

"What kind of 'party' sends a young woman after a dangerous criminal with no backup?"

"The fewer people who know your identity, the better."

He held her gaze for a long time. Finally, he spoke.

"How do you know me?"

"I can't tell you that. Not until I trust you."

"Then if you're smart, you'll never tell me."

She grinned.

"Who said I was smart?"

"That's what I'm banking on."

A chill shot down her spine and set her teeth on edge. She covered it with a sigh and sat back down in her own chair. She had walked right into that one. What other faults would he pull her into? How many cracks marred her surface, and would he see them? Would he use them?

Was this whole idea incredibly, unbelievably stupid?

Dessa had never put much stock in hindsight.

"Look, Professor Crane-"

"Doctor."

"Dr. Crane. If you don't help us there's no reason for us not to kill you. But if you do, there's every reason for your reward to be astronomical. The times are changing. Chemical warfare, Dr. Crane." She was rewarded with a tic in his cheek, another small break in his cool veneer, and hoped that the gears in that infamous head were turning, coming to conclusions. Encouraged, she continued. "If you can produce a viable antidote to your toxin, well…"

He was quiet for a few moments, his face still. Before he spoke, he closed his eyes. "Compensation." She waited, but he said no more, so she answered.

"Complete confidentiality. Access to the best labs and equipment. Political clout. Funding. Assistants."

"I work alone."

"Privacy."

To their surprise, they shared a smile.

"You kidnapped me." His voice was smooth. "You could have asked."

"Nope. The minute you realized I knew who you were you would have fear-gassed me. Right in the fucking face."

He chewed this over. Nodded.

"Let me think this over. Two minutes, please."

She nodded in return, turned to leave.

"And Miss?"

She turned back to him and saw his eyes spark like ghost-lights in the dim.

"I'm glad those legs are real, at least."

She smiled back, her mouth a tight line. Grinding her teeth, she walked the length of the SuperGym back to the changeroom and punched the rusty locker doors until her knuckles bled.

**I might be purple prosing it up, yo. I CAAAAAN'T HELLLLP IT. Next update is Thursday and there's going to be some BRAWLIN' in it. Danger! Adventure! Recumbent bikes!**

**Thank you for all your feedback/follows/etc, I do appreciate it. Actually I crave your validation like sunlight's sweet nectar. Or something.**

**I'M**

**NOT**

**JOKING**

**xo,**

**Yeti**


	3. Shoot the Messenger

He had always had remarkably thin wrists. Working them now as he was through the plastic cuffs, painfully squeezing the IV from his skin, he could appreciate one of those features that had always made him the butt of the joke.

While he worked, he thought about Katrina (although that was obviously a false name he needed something to work with until he found her real one). Oh, did he think of her. Screaming. Pleading. Bleeding. Crying. Dying. The image of her, curled up at his feet, shaking in pain and fear- that was the only thing that kept him from tasting blood.

He would have her yet, and she would _pay_ for this indignity. She would pay a thousand fold.

The trap itself had been well-set- he would give her that if only to spare himself the humiliation of being caught by an amateur. She'd committed entirely to a false persona for two months, not including the extra time and effort it must have taken to research and plan out. And it had worked. The lie of an interested party had been well carried-out as well. If she'd only thought to carry a weapon on her he just might have mistaken her for a mercenary.

It was an interesting enough idea, a cure.

He could always play along.

For a few seconds he considered it, pulling his left hand free and massaging the spot where he'd removed the needle. By the time he'd freed his right hand he decided against it.

He was too angry at being tricked for six weeks, too hungry for Katrina's blood. It seemed obvious that he should take his revenge rather than biting at her ridiculous bait. And if by some miracle there _was_ an 'interested party'… well, then, he'd have shot the messenger. The message would be clear enough.

Cracking his knuckles, he slid on his shirt and ducked into the shadows, barely suppressing a grin.

At least this part would be fun.

**Super short bonus chapter, yo**

**Expect another one in a few hours, complete with the before-promised BRAWLIN**

**xo,**

**Yeti**


	4. Danger, Adventure, & Recumbent Bikes

"Fuck!" Dessa hissed,

This wasn't going to work. She'd studied him for months, and from the look on his face he'd either decided she was bluffing or was intending to turn down the offer. Of course she'd headed straight back to where her weapons were and got ready. She dialed her employer.

"He's not interested. In your offer or mine."

"That's unfortunate. This is where we part ways, then."

"Alright." She sighed. She didn't know what she'd been expecting from the mysterious voice. Certainly not help.

"We'll be calling on you again in the future, Miss Korschev."

"Alright."

She snapped the phone in half and slipped it in her pack.

She didn't believe her employer for one second. He might have given up, but that didn't mean she had. She couldn't afford to.

It was going to be necessary to withdraw. Change her strategy. Wrapping up her knuckles, she decided the best way to leave him was to wait until he'd freed himself. When he was waiting for her in the dark out there (thankfully without his gas) she would have get out past him. It was risky, but she'd been stupid. She'd played her hand too fast. The idea that she should have let him capture her in the alley was rushing through her head, frustrating her.

That wasn't the answer.

It couldn't be.

Not that it mattered now- what mattered was getting out. Getting safe, and getting the hell out of Gotham.

It was tempting to sit there, just stay in the well-lit changing room until morning and try her chances then (or wait for him to storm the room and crack him one across the back of the head as he came through the door), but she knew he wasn't going to come after her and every second she wasted gave him more time to get his bearings, find a weapon, make a plan… her best chance for leaving with her ass intact was to go now.

She threw her pack over her shoulders, grabbed a wooden bat from beside the door, and headed out into the darkness.

For an instant she considered calling out his name, but a quick glance at the pool of light assured her that his chair was empty. She'd been careful to double around from her exit so he wouldn't know quite where the changeroom was- now she slammed the door and threw herself into a rightward sprint around the perimeter of the huge room, praying that she wouldn't run into him.

This was a terrible idea, this was a deathwish, she deserved whatever happened, if only she hadn't slipped up… it took her only a few strides to quell her nervous voice and focus on her goal.

There was very little equipment left in the gym but that which was she was especially careful around on her way to the door. Keeping low to the ground, she made her quiet, adrenalized dash about two thirds of her way before he moved against her.

He sprung out (as she'd been worried he would) from behind a stationary bicycle, silent and haloed in dust, wielding the one-ended barbell like a club. Instinctively she pushed backwards, meaning to slide under his stroke on her knees and keep running. However, she pushed too far, landing square on her tailbone. Her eyes filled with tears. She snorted in pain and rolled forward, not even halfway up before he caught her on the shoulder with another swing of the barbell.

She went down hard and rolled, the baseball bat clattering to a stop several yards away.

Breathing heavily, he crashed the barbell to the floor where her head had been a few seconds before. She lunged forward and hooked her leg behind his knees, bringing him down. Neither of them spoke through this brawl. There was no verbal sparring, no aggressive banter, just the pounding of Dessa's heart as she scrambled to her feet and towards the door.

The padlock that had kept curious kids out so successfully over the past six weeks was still in place. The key was in her backpack. Dessa knew from the sounds of Crane getting up behind her that she didn't have time, so she threw herself for the slightly-open window above, landing with her arms up to her elbows through. Kicking at the door for momentum it only took her a few seconds to sling her leg over and slide most of the way through the gap, but on the way out Crane still managed to grab ahold of her other foot and attempt to pull her back. She closed her eyes and threw herself over the outside edge of the window, wrenching her leg free of his grasp. Her heavy boot kicked up and shattered the window. Landing on her funnybone in a shower of glass, Dessa allowed herself to grunt in pain before struggling upright. He struggled at the dark opening but she seriously doubted he'd be able to get through. He'd have to find another way out, and then she was sure he'd be looking for her. Which meant it was time to get out of Gotham for a while. Many of the crumbling city's residents seemed to feel a strange loyalty to it, but not her- her interest in it was purely practical, and right now leaving would be most practical by far.

She sighed as she jogged to the covered shape of her motorbike and started it up, kicking off into the night. Tonight had been a total fuckup.

And that only meant that she had to try harder.

She wouldn't see him again for nearly six months.

**Drama. Fighting. Bap! Pow! BIFF!  
Tune in Monday for arson, vengeance, and the first in-story look at Arkham Asylum!**

**Xo,**

**Yeti**


	5. Arkham in November

Those six months treated Jonathan Crane remarkably well for a man who had started them trapped inside a dank, abandoned gymnasium.

Several sweaty minutes of battering the padlock with his weaponized barbell had taken care of that. He'd heard the screech of her tires as she left minutes before and, remembering the size of the city and the speed with which one could travel through it if one ignored traffic laws, decided not to bother. Not that night, at least. Revenge would come, and it would rain down upon her so savagely that she would beg for him to end her. Soon. But not tonight.

He limped home in the dim morning light, feeling rather dramatic. When he finally got there he collapsed into his bed and slept for the next eighteen hours, missing his deadline for grading pre-midterm papers, and almost, _almost_ having to crawl on his knees for the board of administrators.

'Almost' because his job at the University was suddenly not so important.

'Almost' because that next morning, just before he could compose an apologetic email, he received an email of his own.

'Almost' because he had just been offered a position as Chief of Psychiatric Care at Arkham Asylum.

He began his new job two months later, finding it to be everything he had hoped and more. Although he didn't have his pick of the student body for potential test-subjects, he was suddenly surrounded by patients. With the Draconian way Arkham patients were generally treated it seemed to him that he was being paid to experiment on them, and he was all too eager to earn his pay. Although he didn't speak much with his coworkers and never initiated interactions with them, they liked him well enough. He was a smart man and a hard worker, quiet, polite, always staying late and sometimes fielding their work for them. On his own time, in the darkened corridors and empty rooms where he conducted his experiments, he was intensely pleased. Things were going exactly as he liked, and so they would continue for almost four months.

His only complaint in this time was that it had been impossible to find hide or hair of the so-called Katrina Vandermeer. Almost immediately after he'd received the job offer on his professional email, he forced the elation down to a dull roar and started his search. According to her student records, she'd never existed. That didn't surprise him- that had obviously been a false identity and it was only natural that she cover her tracks. Unfortunately, Crane had not entirely adapted to the age of computers and beyond her false name he didn't know how to track her down. He had no pictures, no recordings, and no valid information. The apartment was newly rented to a young gay couple who had no idea as to who the previous tenant might have been, and Katrina's friends seemed to know nothing besides that she'd dropped school and skipped town- nothing unusual in Gotham. It was like chasing a ghost.

After a particularly fruitless Sunday spent rifling through birth and arrest records at the Gotham Library, he decided that enough was enough. She was an isolated crazy looking for a cure, who by now had probably left Gotham for good. Occasionally an especially blonde woman passing on the street would be the subject of his icy glare, but eventually his anger subsided. It left behind a niggling curiosity that he had eventually filed at the back of his mind and resolved to think of no more.

Just before midnight one night late in November, he was walking up the stairs to the hospital, responding to an emergency call. There had been a massive fire at Jubilee Mall, killing two security guards and decimating over half the shops. The arsonists had put the police on a merry chase, but once they were caught (a miracle considering the GPD's rate on such things) it was quite clear they were beyond ordinary mental help. And, so, of course they'd been sent to Arkham.

Crane sighed. Outside it was quiet, crisp, and peaceful, the second snow of the season just beginning to fall. He could almost hear is breath crackling as it steamed out around his head. It was so silent out here that he could almost believe that in a few seconds he wouldn't be walking into a quite literal Bedlam. Heaving a sigh, he stepped inside.

The three of them had just been brought in by the back entrance (which explained the relative quiet out front) and were being wheeled through to their cells. Crane stepped back to let them past and observe. The first was a large, dark man who had reportedly taken down three EMTs on scene, the second a smaller fellow who they suspected might be the first's brother. Last to go past Crane was a young woman, struggling and screaming in her restraints. Judging by the burns that marred her forearms, she'd been the one to set the fires. Her unwounded skin was as pale as snow and she was bone thin, her hair shaved to ragged, white stubble. She saw him and her eyes widened, her entire body going still. Her scream trailed off like the call of a crow, echoing through the main hall.

Jonathan's boss, Quincy Sharp, came over from his office to stand beside him.

"I'm afraid this one's pretty bad, Jonathan. She's the ringleader, or at least that's what we think, and she's in deep. She needs a lot of help. Can you handle it alone? I know you haven't been here-"

"Yes, yes." Crane snapped, waving the older man off, his eyes fixed on the last gurney. An electric current was creeping over him, chilling his bones, making him smile despite himself. "I can handle it very well, I think."

The girl on it arched her back, looking back at him one last time, her eyes wide and deep and murky enough to lose your pennies in, and then she was gone, wheeled through to the High-Security Wing. Her face was burned against his eyelids like something holy.

It was her.

**Aw, a sweet reunion of two buddies.**

**I have a lot of real-life writing work to do over the next few weeks and to be honest over the rest of my earthly existence. I've been considering deleting (cause I'm a dick) and just not stringing myself or you guys along any further with the idea that I can keep up a fanfiction schedule. **

**But here's the thing- I've really been enjoying writing this. I like playing around with places and characters that aren't my own, and slipping my own in there to splash around in the water a while. It makes Gotham a regular playground. And I like that.**

**So, for now I've decided to keep going at least until the end of this arc (Dessa has a few more Gotham stories in her set after it). I'll continue to update Mondays and Thursdays. **

**After that we'll see.**

**xo,**

**Yeti**


	6. An Impasse

Fire. Jean leaping to her rescue, barreling her out of the path of the flames. Broken glass. Skidding across the ground, and finding a gun to her temple. People in white suits who wouldn't treat her, who just wanted to tie her down. Flashing lights. Darkness. Heat. Fire.

Dessa shook in the dim light of her cell. Her arms stinging as though they were still engulfed in flames, while the rest of her body ached and her teeth chattered with cold. It was drafty in there. Drafty and echoing. She heard his footsteps coming neat and sharp down the hall from miles away. Her shivering neither intensified nor abated, but she gave herself the small concession of closing her eyes.

The key turned in the lock, the door swung open, and he came into the cell.

His steps were as abrupt as ever but she liked to think she heard a hitch between one or two of them as he approached the gurney. As he leaned silently over her, his shadow blotted out the red light in her closed eyes and she swallowed hard, trying not to accede to her fear.

"That was quite a dramatic entrance."

"Place like this? I didn't think there was any other kind." Her voice only cracked once. She was proud.

"That won't help your case when I start dosing you. If they already think you're crazy they're not even going to notice a difference."

Her heart plummeted, but she wouldn't let it show. "My arms were just on fire. I can scream if I like."

"Oh, yes." He sighed with something that, were he a simpler man, might have been contentment. "You can scream all you like."

Her eyes shot open at the feeling of something cool on her wounded arm, but he wasn't doing anything horrible. On the contrary, he had a wet towel and was wrapping it gently around her arm. He raised his eyebrows without looking away from her arm and continued talking as he applied another towel, covering the burns completely.

"Why are you here?"

"I burned down a mall."

He snorted. "I'm sure that's not the only reason."

"Okay. I got caught burning down a mall." She hissed as he tightened the towel a bit too much in frustration. "Fuck, ease up. I didn't know you were working here."

"I'm not inclined to believe that."

"I'm not inclined to believe that you're not here tonight because you knew I got arrested and sent here. So we're square."

"Hardly." He moved to her other side and set to work with the towels again. They didn't talk again until he was done wrapping her arm, when he pulled a chair up beside her. She watched him for a few seconds before she spoke.

"You didn't come after me."

"I had more pressing matters to attend to."

"You weren't worried? I mean, that I would tell someone?"

He looked at her strangely. "No. What good would I be to you in jail?"

"None, I guess. Not that you're any great good to me here."

Sighing, he leaned in over her.

"Are you attempting to distract me?"

"Is it working?"

"No." He tapped his watch, smirking, "I have a schedule set, and we're right on time."

Fear spiked through her like an electric shock, and she shuddered in her restraints despite herself, ignoring his widening smile. When she spoke, any evenness in her voice was gone.

"What's it like?"

"I'm not going to reassure you. You brought this on yourself."

"Okay." She nodded to herself, bit her lip. "Okay. You can do this. It's okay."

"You wanted a cure. Why?"

"A friend. She's sick."

"Does she know you're going to rot in Arkham because of her?"

"I'm not. I'm going to rot in Arkham because I blew up a mall."

His lip curled in a sneer. "When did I meet your friend?"

"None of your business."

They were quiet for about a minute before a quiet, high beeping alerted Crane to his watch, which he fiddled with for a few seconds. The beeping stopped. He stood up and rummaged in his pockets. After a few seconds he pulled out a small blue pill.

"This is a muscle relaxant. It will keep you from thrashing around too much and rupturing any of the burns on your arms while you're drugged. I strongly suggest you take it now so that it takes effect in time."

He held it over her mouth like a question, and she opened her teeth wide, swallowing it quickly after he dropped it. He grinned.

"That could have been poison."

"I'd rather be dead than in here." She was proud, again, of the matter-of-fact way in which she stated this.

"Besides, that would put us off schedule." He unwrapped the towels from around her arms. They were stained yellow and red and he grimaced as he tossed them into a bin in the corner of the room.

Withdrawing some gauze from his suit pocket, he lifted her arm and looped it around the wounded skin. Her arms felt weak already and her breathing was getting slow.

"You're being very gentle. Thank you."

The edge of his lip curled up. "I don't intend to harm your body."

Dessa let her head fall to the other side so that she didn't need to look at him while he bandaged her other arm. Her insides felt cold and electric but she wasn't shaking anymore- her muscles might as well have been pudding.

"The relaxant worked fast. I'd say it was a benzo if… you know. That wasn't totally counterproductive."

He didn't answer. It was almost a minute before he spoke and when he did his voice was quiet- cautious, almost, it seemed to her.

"There is one thing. If you… If you told me your name… You're not stupid. You could help me with my research… I wouldn't have to test on you. But I need to know who you are. I need to trust you."

That last bit was his downfall- she could practically taste the lie around the soapy after-tang of the pill. Even if she'd thought he'd been being truthful, she wouldn't have agreed.

And he thought _he_ had a schedule.

She made every effort to look up at him, grinning feebly. She felt as though her tongue was glued to a battery.

"You couldn't find me, could you?" She laughed and it turned into a cough. "I _am_ quite good."

His lips pursed as he glared down at her. She felt a cold gentle spray on her face, smelt the air turn metallic. Breathed in deep.

The fear caught like a vice around the chest and pulled her under.

**Hm. A lot of news in my life lately, and a lot of it confusing. Fortunately I got **_**this**_** shit under control (at least) and can promise a new update on Monday. There'll be more toxin and Arkham and other good stuff.**

**I, personally, was a bit disappointed at how little Arkham showed up in the Nolanverse, though I guess stylistically that made sense. I'm too into Arkham tho I just want to hang out there forever. That's not even a little bit true.  
At least I liked the game.**


	7. Tea for Two

She was reacting unusually. If Crane had stopped the experiments right then (and of course he wouldn't) he'd have been as content puzzling over the results from the past week as he would be with an armload of new patients. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this interested in the process of his work, this pleased with the outcome. It brought the passion back to his long, arduous nights, and made days at the asylum bearable. Several times he was almost tempted to thank her prone and shuddering body before she came out of her nightmares and back into the waking world.

Signs that she was an unusual case had been coming in since the very first dose. After her initial panic attack she'd lain there almost perfectly still, her breathing shaky, tears on her cheeks. She didn't talk, which was highly unusual- usually the first the subjects did was barrage Crane with a breathless, slurred reliving of their worst nightmares, memories, and fears. That gave him something to Aside from some rapid blinking a few little gasps, she was entirely quiet and still. If she hadn't been breathing he would have thought she was dead.

And if she didn't give him some indicator of what she was seeing, there was no way for him to guide her session.

Furrowing his brow, he waited for a few minutes, watching her. It didn't take him long to become impatient. He started with a few visual stimuli- moving his hands slowly, then quickly, across her peripheral vision. When she responded well (albeit a bit blearily and with quite a lot of hyperventilation) he spoke, completely unsure what to say.

"Miss Vandemeer." A pause, during which she shook her head as though shaking off a fly, made a strangled noise in her throat. "Katrina."

She just barely turned her face to his, the pupils contracting and dilating repeatedly in her big, gray eyes. Her face, made malleable with the fear, shifted through confusion to realization to laughter. Almost silent, broken, shaky, but laughter nonetheless. He stared, watching her silently, refusing to admit that it frightened him. She wouldn't stop laughing.

A second dose of the toxin took care of that.

Things progressed like that for a few sessions. Her reactions were half what he'd been expecting, half what he was used to. Somehow she was resistant to the toxin. He did bloodwork on her, extensive bloodwork (finding her gratifyingly afraid of needles) but could find nothing to indicate this resistance. He didn't even know what he was searching for. He only know that she was different.

During the experiments she was stolidly silent, never doing anything more than occasionally whimpering or rolling her eyes in fear. She didn't scream, and she never, ever laughed as she had the first day. He was glad for that, at least.

When she wasn't drugged (during their 'therapy' sessions) she was quietly sardonic, frustrating for Crane to deal with but also refreshing compared to the rest of his patients, who at this point were so dead-eyed and resigned he found it hard to care enough to make their lives hell.

It was their fourth day working together, and both of them were irascible. Dessa was curled up in an office chair, her knees on her chin, her hand cuffed to an armrest. Crane was maintaining good posture, at least, but his back ached and he was getting a crick in his neck. The only thing that kept him upright was a memory of his great-grandmother barking insults in his ear, telling him to do at least one thing right.

"Who are you?"

She stuck her tongue out at him and he immediately forgot that he'd ever found her refreshing. Bitch.

"What's your name?"

She rolled her eyes so exaggeratedly that she looked like a cartoon parody of herself. Crane had some violent thoughts of deflating her ego, or possibly those eyes. A rusty nail would do nicely…

"You know…" he looked up from his clipboard, giving her a satisfied smile, "your boys? The ones you were brought in with? They were transferred to Blackgate this morning. Sold you out completely for a transfer."

She shrugged. "I didn't choose them expecting loyalty. But…" she grinned back at him, just as sweetly, "they didn't know who I was either, huh?"

He just barely resisted the urge to find a way, some way, to murder her there and then. "They didn't say anything about why you were suddenly so interested in arson, either. They had no idea."

"Do you?"

"You wanted to get caught. To get put in here."

"Now why would anyone want to come to a place like this?"

A few seconds passed before she broke the silence.

"How were they," she paused, smiling wickedly, "upstairs?"

For a moment Crane panicked, thinking she'd figured out that he conducted most of his nighttime experiments in the many secluded attic rooms of the asylum- she'd always seemed far too affected by the drug when he brought her up there for her to be of any worry. His panic subsided when she tapped her temple with her uncuffed hand and he realized she was talking about their minds.

"Oh." He smiled back. This was when he liked her. She understood without being a threat to him. She could listen without ever being able to credibly repeat what he said. She was someone to talk to. "Well, the little one-"

"Luc."

"-is afraid that he won't be able to protect his brother, which of course he _wasn't_. I had some fun with that. Let him watch me dose the other one."

"Jean."

"I don't care about their names. He was afraid of snakes, though."

She snorted. "Here? In Gotham city? God. Priorities."

"I doubt he knows the meaning of the word."

"And you let them transfer? Aren't you worried they might sell you out, too?"

"Oh, they don't remember that. The formula I give to low-risk patients induces temporary anterograde amnesia. That way I can cast them off if need be."

Their sessions always ended like this, with him telling her far more than he was comfortable telling. He wanted to hate it, to hate _her_, but it was a valuable catharsis. This secrecy surrounding his work had been getting to him more than he wanted to admit. Besides, no matter what she thought, she was the one handcuffed to a chair. She was the one under his control. And besides, he had the ace up his sleeve. He was eroding her mind.

"Hm, that's strange. I remember… parts. Bits and pieces. Am I not low-risk, then?"

"No. You're plotting something. At least you think you are. The formula you're on doesn't cause amnesia. Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, yes. Panic attacks, flashbacks, long-term brain damage, yes. Amnesia, no."

She bit her lip and nodded. "And it's working, then? I can't really tell but I've always been a bit dumb."

"It's working." His voice was doing well at sounding much more confident than he actually was. In truth she was holding up remarkably well- another mystery in her chemical makeup, no doubt.

Looking at her, Crane decided that no matter what else, her interest in the subject of fear was very genuine indeed. Although he wouldn't have admitted it to anyone but himself, he thought that just maybe she had allowed herself to be arrested so that she could to talk to him and try to find a cure on her own. Learn from him.

Of course he wouldn't teach her anything along those lines. And of course she had made the serious mistake of neutralizing herself as a threat by essentially signing up as his patient, a mistake the majority of Gotham's underworld seemed all too eager to make. But poor methods or not, her essential message was quite flattering.

"Well if I'm going to go mad anyway, let's enjoy the time we have left together. If you get me a cup of tea you can tell me more about Jean's ophidiophobia."

She looked so hopeful that Crane was actually in the next room boiling water before he realized what he was doing.

**Almost forgot to upload today. Busy busy busy, and in the middle of a heat wave too. It's been one of those weeks where you just want to lie in bed until all of your problems go away.**

**Next chapter is a big one- we'll go into Dessa's past and figure out why, exactly, she's hunted down Crane…**


End file.
